Listen Up: Jillette Johnson

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For Jillette Johnson creating her debut album, Water in a Whale, was not a simple task. In fact, the New York singer/songwriter sifted through years' worth of material to generate a cohesive record that Johnson feels best tells her story.

"Water in a Whale is about being a young woman in New York, trying to make sense of the world around her," Johnson told ELLE.com. "It's about trying to cope and not be bitter, and trying to find silver linings under every stumble. After sorting through hundreds of songs that I've written over the years, my producers Peter Zizzo and Michael Mangini and I locked ourselves in a studio in Times Square and just starting layering sounds over them. But we made sure that all of the production just enhanced and elaborated upon what the songs were in their original form."

The album, which is out June 25 via Wind-up Records, focuses on Johnson's skill as a pianist, each track using the instrument as a foundation for the musician's surging pop melodies. "Cameron," a track that first appeared on Johnson's past EP Whiskey and Frosting, is the singer's favorite. The strikingly emotive number is based on a friend who is transgender, but ultimately Johnson uses that idea as a platform to explore her own outsider identity. "It's about a little boy who identifies as a girl," she said of the song. "Despite the bullying and scrutiny he faces from the world around him, he is fiercely himself."

Johnson, who describes her onstage style as "somewhere in between Empire Records and Almost Famous," recently played at Bonnaroo and Firefly Music Festival, and will tour in the U.S. this summer. Mostly, though, the singer is just happy to finally release her debut album. "It's a really big thing for me," she noted. "I started writing songs when I was eight, and I always knew this was the life I wanted. This is 12 years of sweat and tears being released into the universe. It's kind of terrifying, but in a wonderful way."

In the exclusive video below, Johnson goes behind the scenes of her album cover shoot with photographer Rebecca Miller and discusses her goals for the aesthetic that accompanies her music.

The singer explains that she wanted her styling for the shoot to be "a little bit vintage," but be something "you could pluck out of any era." Plus, the short offers a listen to "Cameron."